The sign, and its implied support of Chick-fil-A's stance on gay marriage, was the work of Jim Furmen, who owns 86 Wendy's franchises in North Carolina. When pictures of the signs were posted on Reddit and began circulating online, Wendy's quickly took to Twitter to say the franchise owner did not represent the views of the entire company, saying “We proudly serve ALL customers" and adding that the signs had been taken down.

Conservative bloggers and writers then took issue with the insinuation that Chick-fil-A did not serve all customers (even its critics haven't made that charge), whereupon Wendy's backtracked. "Not our intention at all," Wendy's said repeatedly to users that criticized them. "We're simply saying that an independent franchisee posted the sign."

As of press time, Wendy's has apologized so much on Twitter that it's had to ask critics (like Breitbart.com's Dana Loesch) to retweet its responses because it's running up against the service's posting limit.